"Telepathic speech"
"Normal speech"
Chapter 1: Prologue - Fate's Cleaver
Becoming an agent of fate probably isn't a job many would consider, though, it would probably be more accurate to say it's not one many would be offered.
One does not simply sign up online, fill out a form, or ask a primordial force of existence if they can work for it. You have to be chosen, hand picked by a concept few can even begin to truly understand.
Such was my situation 30 cycles, or years as you know them, ago.
Truth be told, I had a pretty great life. I'd been working as a bodyguard and assassin for one of the largest crime syndicates on the inner disc of The Void, but all good things must come to an end eventually.
You see, I grew up in a small little town on the outskirts of the inner disc, a nice little place, fairly good people. I found my way there a few weeks after I first formed, took over the job of a gunsmith a few cycles later after doing some work for the previous owner. I was good at what I did too, building, cleaning, shooting.
Some time later I became the town's sheriff, after the previous one was killed, I tried to stay inside the law, but you end up having to make deals with bad people. Eventually I just decided to go all the way and became a gun for hire, left the town and all of my friends.
I'd been working for this syndicate for the last two decades and had managed to stay away from their more detestable businesses. If they wanted me to kill a rival, sure, keep one of their higher ups alive during negotiations, no problem.
At the time I'd thought everything was going fine, that I could stay out of the darker corners of the organization, hindsight is 20/20.
That morning there were just about 5,000 people in my old town, all going about their days, working, playing, living, by nightfall, everyone was dead.
I was called in afterwards, to help find anyone who had escaped, no one had. It wasn't until hours later, when one of my employers was discussing what they were going to do with the land, that I realized where we were. What had happened, and who had done it.
I don't really remember much after that, don't even know what they were going to do with the town. Most of what I remember is screaming, dark red blood, and gunfire.
By the time I was done I'd killed sixty five members of the same syndicate that had hired me to protect them. I decided that wasn't enough.
It took me five months before I had planned out how to burn their entire business to the ground, it took one more to do so.
There's a thing in most media, where the person doing this talks about why they did, explains to their enemies how they won, I didn't much care if they knew why they were dying, just that they did.
It must have been that, I imagine, that encouraged fate to pick me as its agent, that I was so efficient, ruthless, whatever you describe it as. It liked that.
30 YEARS AGO
A sound, so far removed from what could be called a voice, worked its way into my skull.
"Hello, Jack Zephyr." Even so, I could understand it perfectly.
My gun, an unremarkable black military rifle, snapped to my shoulder, my finger ready to pull its trigger at a moment's notice. Yet, there was nothing there, the room was still empty, save the body at my feet and the expensive desk in front of me.
"You are safe, for the time." The second time it spoke I realized something, the feeling, the presence behind its voice. I was speaking to something far removed from what I had seen before.
"What are you? How am I hearing you?" I had many questions, I was tired still from the days before, from all the fighting. Even so I could not mistake this as a trick of my mind, I knew what those felt like.
"I believe most mortal beings call me fate." Was not the answer I expected to hear.
"Fate is a concept." I was skeptical, to say the least.
"Oh? And are you not a concept yourself? Concepts are simply things your kind invented to try to understand the world."
If this thing was fate, then I knew I had to ask it why. Why had all of this happened? To what end was all of this necessary. I opened my mouth to ask, but it seemed to know my question already.
"Necessary?" A laugh followed. "What makes you believe this was necessary? You could have stayed quiet, that was your choice, just as it was theirs to slaughter your friends."
"But you're fate! If you exist, how was this choice ours to begin with!?" I was angry now, understandably, however misguided it was at the time.
"You seem to have the wrong impression of what I am. You would have acted the same way regardless of my existence. That is what free will is, is it not? While I may know how things will occur, I do not influence them."
"Then everyone, they all died for nothing? That's it?" I was distraught, what would I do now? Perhaps I could find work with something inside the law again, like I had before. That wouldn't stop the other criminals from coming after me though, I'd be looking over my shoulder until I was finally killed.
"Perhaps, or perhaps not. I have an offer for you, Jack Zephyr." I was surprised, but before I could say anything it spoke again. "You can leave this place, try to make a new life, all the while worrying about a knife in your back."
It paused, my interest was growing.
"Or, you can work for me. There are many more problems throughout the multiverse Jack, men just like the ones you fought, and some even worse. They threaten to damage reality itself, however I am unable to do anything about it myself. You will be given whatever you need to complete the tasks I give you, so long as they are done. It will be incredibly dangerous, you will face creatures the likes of which you could never imagine."
Finally, all it asked was one question. "Do you agree, Jack Zephyr? Will you be my blade?"
I realize now, that I hadn't thought this through, I was exhausted, admittedly scared, and confused. I had spent the last five months doing nothing but hurt the people who had hurt me and those I knew. I wasn't thinking straight, but the part of me that was thinking agreed with fate's logic, and I made a choice that would change everything.
"Yes."
2 YEARS LATER
I was running, as fast as I possibly could. It was my third job for fate, something that I was told would be a simple assassination. It had gone bad very quickly, the target had been a deviant, a person who had voluntarily left their universe and had interfered with another, disrupting the natural events that would take place.
A bolt of plasma flew by my shoulder, splashing against a nearby tree and melting part of its trunk. A pair of crystalline needles slammed into another before detonating, sending a tree crashing down behind me.
I could hear my pursuers behind me, yelling in an alien language I didn't know. They were big reptilian things with a split jaw and digitigrade legs, I'd fought a few already, but these were significantly stronger, with better shielding and armor.
If I got hit I was dead, my holo shield was shot, and I had already lost my right eye, fortunately the targets were dead, and my ship was-
"AHHH! FUCK!" Searingpain was all I could feel, my right shoulder was burning, the joint was a mess, melted flesh and bone was dripping down my arm, and I couldn't feel or move anything.
Pulling out my pistol, an advanced coil gun within the frame of a hi-tech revolver, I fired off three shots, the sonic cracks announcing the death of my pursuers. There were more behind them though, and I needed to keep moving.
Sprinting faster than I ever had before, I could see my ship through the trees. I had landed in a clearing beyond the forest I was currently in, and I was so very close to the edge.
Tapping my earpiece, I sent a command to open the loading ramp. Sprinting inside, I ran to the cockpit and activated its launch sequence. The shields and plating would be enough to survive what the alien fighter craft could throw at us, and once I was in space I would be untouchable.
It was with this thought that I remembered my arm and eye, resulting in the feeling of the destroyed body parts coming back tenfold.
"Gah! Motherf- ah!" Tapping a button on a terminal I spoke into the console. "Prepare medibay- fuck! Prepare medibay for an immediate scan." I took a quick look at my arm, "And for an amputation."
PRESENT DAY
There's something peaceful about a world standing still. You can see things you would never notice otherwise, there's also something so off putting as well. Everything moves, even things that we see as still are moving, at an atomic level perhaps, but moving nonetheless. I looked toward the three people in front of me, all friends of one another, I Imagine.
In another time they might have been the saviors of this world, heroes from another universe, unlucky enough to fall through a rift between this world and theirs, unfortunately they would never get the chance.
Lining up all three of their heads, I readied myself and threw my arm forward. My blade, a titanium bowie knife with a handle made of maple wood, slid across their throats. Thrown from my hand at speeds nearly faster than the eye could see, lodging itself in a tree across from them
Then Time resumed its natural speed.
The shock is always the first thing, then horror, and if they happen to see me, confusion. The Voidborn had taken to calling us Fate's Cleavers. Fitting, though I wondered how they knew my employer. I never actually talked with my targets, no reason to take chances
Most of my jobs involved tracking down and killing deviants. From what I knew, if left unchecked beings from one universe interacting with another, could cause incredible damage to reality, and it was my job to eliminate them.
After I lost my arm and eye, fate had taken it upon herself, apparently concepts have a sex, to make me even better at what I did. Cybernetic implants, a bionic arm and eye, chemical and physical enhancements, better weapons and equipment, and most importantly teaching me to manipulate time.
I do not claim to be an expert, it takes incredible concentration on my part to even slow it down, and I have not yet figured out how to stop it. It is also extremely difficult to slow down other creatures, though the weaker their will it becomes easier.
Looking down I saw that the three boys have stopped gurgling on their own blood, in fact they stopped moving entirely, dead then. With that I went ahead and gathered any items off them that could show their otherworldly origin, and destroyed them using a powerful acid. Burying the bodies is the last thing that I did before calling my ship.
Like me, my transport has been updated and improved as well, it is a fairly large size, 73 meters long and 72 in width. It's shaped like a triangle, with the large wings going all the way from back to past its cockpit, with two massive engines in the back. Its weapons include plasma accelerators, small caliber railguns, and seeking air to air missile systems.
Breaking through the atmosphere I left the cockpit as artificial gravity turned on. Heading to my quarters I hung up my gear in the armory, then headed to the showers.
Some of you may not like me by now, I don't blame you, much of what I do could be seen as evil by those who do not know the truth. Speaking of truth, I imagine you have seen me use terms like The Void, and are probably wondering what it all means, a full explanation will come in time.
For now just understand this, The Void is what forms from the dead and dying universes throughout the multiverse, whenever a universe is consumed by entropy, artificial or natural, some pieces are shed into the space between all universes, forming with other fractured worlds, The Void.
Finishing my shower, I walked out and got dressed, a pair of dark gray slacks, a lighter gray button down shirt, a maroon vest, brown-red boots, and a dark brown overcoat. A few colleagues of mine have told me I look like a mix between a soldier and a "cowboy", not quite sure what that is.
Securing my belt and holsters I head back to the armory. I'd learned to use many weapons throughout the last century, however I always gravitated toward a mix of incredible range and close quarters combat. When you can slow time aiming five kilometer shots becomes significantly easier, and you become nearly untouchable in a melee.
As such, my weapons of choice are a single shot railgun, a weapon with almost unmatched power and precision, as well as a pair of plasma pistols, both modeled after the revolvers I used more than a century ago, finally is the titanium bowie knife.
"ATTENTION: Docking at spaceport 0-Cetrin, bay 9"
Cetrin was the current base of operations for myself and the rest of Fate's agents, it was where we were given our missions, and a place of comfort for when we were not out hunting down our targets.
While I would like to take credit for all of the work we do, there are in fact more agents than just me, 99 more. Some of us are better at certain things, for example I'm not a hacker, nor am I particularly good at large scale warfare. Something else is that all of us have a unique skill of sorts, I can manipulate time, others can read minds, manipulate space, control fire, use telekinesis, ect.
As I walked down the ramp of my ship I saw someone waiting at the edge of the ship bay. A woman is a form fitting armored black catsuit, fairly tall just under six feet, on her head was a ballistic mask of sorts, also colored black with a single red stripe running through the middle. She carried no weapons, but I knew that hardly mattered if we were to fight one another, I'd seen her fists blow through the armor on a tank.
"Hello Nine." Nine was an agent like myself, between all of us everyone was simply called by their number, given the dangers of our job. Out of the others, Nine was the one I'd interacted most with, and the only one who had worked with me in the field. A bit of an odd character for sure, generally calm, however she could be irritated under the right circumstances. If you actually managed to piss her off, then you would be lucky to get off with multiple broken bones.
"Hello? That's all, Eleven? I'm disappointed." She chuckled, "Now come on, Fate has a job she specifically requested you for." That was never a good sign, typically we would pick our own targets out of a list, there were quite a few deviants throughout the multiverse, having fate choose one in particular meant it was extremely important, and if she chose me, very time sensitive.
Most of my work has nothing to do with death, ninety percent of my job is tracking down my target, and only very rarely do they put up much of a fight. Thus I became a very good detective, not the best of us all, that honor went to number twenty three, but good enough to find my mark within a few weeks if they were locked to a single planet.
"So," I began, "any idea what the mission is?"
Nine giggled at that, "What? Nervous now? And here I thought you were always so stoic Eleven."
"No, just curious, these sorts of things don't happen very often."
"Well you don't need to worry Eleven," she paused, we had stopped before the main elevator, a large platform used to move supplies or people between the different levels of Cetrin. "from what I know it's nothing new, just a bit more important, needs to be done quickly."
"I see." This would most likely be another simple enough assassination then. "How fast will it need to be done?"
"I'm not sure, didn't get that much information, Fate'll tell you when you see her."
The elevator stopped, we were in the central dome, a massive space filled with amenities for returning agents, and facilities to keep our skills and equipment sharp. Right in front of us was the mission board, a large holographic console showing pending contracts any agent could take on, there were dozens shown.
A sudden voice came from the machine, "Please step forward agent 11." Doing so I heard the voice of fate, the sound still inhuman and incomprehensible, yet something I could understand perfectly fine.
"Hello Eleven, I take it you have completed your current job?", at my nod she continued, "Good, I have something quite urgent I need you to take care of," a pause, "there is a deviant heading toward the M-198 sector, they have done so willingly, I can only conclude that they are planning to do interfere with one of the universes."
This was new, very few deviants left their home worlds willingly, and most didn't have the capability to do so anyway. "How did this happen? A god?"
"That seems to be the most likely reason, does this bother you?" She didn't sound particularly concerned.
"Of course not, most gods are incapable of interacting with the physical world. I was just wondering if perhaps this is the natural course of history for this world?"
Fate scoffed, "Not in the slightest, while this world could interact with a few others, this is not one of them. I am assigning you the mission to hunt down and eliminate this deviant. However there will be restrictions this time, the spirits and gods of this world are remarkably strong, and you will not draw their attention."
I knew what that meant, in the case that a universe has a being strong enough to affect the Void, it was best to leave behind as few traces of our presence as possible. This meant I would need to use technologically appropriate weapons and equipment, significantly inferior to my current armaments. "I understand, send me the file on M-198, I'll get ready."
Before I could turn around, Fate called one last time, "One last thing, I ask that you and Nine do this together, I would like to minimize the risk of this going wrong, and Nine has a skill set well suited to this task."
A quick glance to my right and I could see Nine leaning against a wall, I could almost feel the smirk through her visor. "Of course, you know I'd love to help out." Nine chimed in upon meeting my gaze.
"Perfect, you have three months to complete this assignment, good hunting.", and with that the screen fell silent. Leaving Nine and I alone to get ready for the trip outside the Void. Already walking back to the elevator, Nine waved to me to follow.
"M-198 is pretty far away, we'll have time to review the data on the way there, let's do something while your ship gets refueled, I have a few ideas~."
I hummed, of course, "How about a spar? I didn't have much of a fight the last few missions, I'd rather not get rusty." It was true, most that I was sent to eliminate recently hadn't been very powerful, and I rarely fought large quantities, so large scale battles almost never occurred. I'd missed it more than I like to admit.
Nine snorted at that, "Of course you want to fight." she walked around me and draped her arms over my shoulders, a sensual gesture, if not for the armor she wore, because of that it just became uncomfortable. "Fine, I'll oblige you this time, might as well I suppose, seeing as how I'm coming with you."
The pit, as it is called, is a state of the art combat arena, fit for simulations against many different foes, or for battles between agents. One hundred meters in diameter, and capable of simulating any environment using an advanced hard light system, it was the perfect place to prepare for the coming mission.
I had checked the data sent by Fate on our way here, much to Nine's annoyance. The world we were going to had a mostly medieval society, swords, spears, bow and arrow, horses, metal plate armor, and magic. Thus I opted for weapons fitting what we would use while there, my titanium bowie knife, a dozen throwing daggers, a one handed arming sword, a larger two handed blade that would just as easily break bone as cleave flesh, and a crossbow with a full 2 ton draw weight. While early firearms existed within this world, they were simply too inaccurate at longer distances for my use, thus an extremely heavy crossbow was the next decision. It would punch through a steel plate, and the person behind it, with the metal bolts I had acquired for it, and I could accurately fire it up to half a kilometer away.
Nine had not grabbed any weapons, however her attire had changed, over the top of her bodysuit and ballistic mask, she was wearing the garb of something called a ninja, with plated metal bracers, shin guards and a chestplate. Even now I couldn't see even a centimeter of skin, not that I wanted too of course.
I suppose I should mention that while in this arena, neither of us would take any real damage, all the trauma would simply be converted to a tiring effect, while this meant debilitating injuries would not play a role in our fight, it meant we would both survive whatever the other did.
"10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2…," went the arena countdown, we had chosen a forest with a clearing directly in the middle, it had plenty of fallen trees, rocks and other debris to hide behind, or use as extra weaponry, until finally, "1, BEGIN!"
Nine, 100 meters away from me at the other edge of the arena, shot off like a rocket, a black and silver blur that's sheer speed blew the land around where she'd begun away in a shockwave.
Two bolts of steel flew from my crossbow in succession, loaded one after another faster than the eye could follow, both missing and blowing through a pair of trees behind her, shredding massive holes through both sides of the thick wood.
I didn't have any time at all to admire the destruction however, Nine was only feet away by now, having crossed the 100 meter distance in a second. With a thought, the world slowed, Nine was still moving, being far too fast for me to slow down entirely, however I now held the advantage, being able to move at a normal speed within the slowed world.
A fist flew past my head as I ducked to the left, contrary to how you may think this works, speeding myself up does not make me hit harder, nor does it make others hit softer, so a blow from Nine would still be just as painful now, just far easier to avoid.
My right arm threw a hook, too fast for Nine to avoid, into the side of her head. While I may still be relatively human, my right arm is fully cybernetic, meaning it can hit dozens of times harder than my organic arm would be capable of, and once time resumed it's normal pace, Nine was in the air faster than I could blink, flying through a massive boulder in front of me, shattering it upon impact.
Truth be told, I'm not sure what Nine is, she looks humanoid, has no extra appendages, and doesn't have any real defining abilities, just brute strength, a wealth of combat knowledge, and magic.
As if to prove a point, a sudden beam of plasma burned through the air above me as I ducked, vaporizing the tops of trees behind me. Nine walked back into the clearing, about ten feet above the ground, fire licking her clothes, and two balls of pure energy floating above her.
"Oh fuck." I prepared myself for the incoming headache as I slowed time to a crawl once again, throwing all twelve daggers in her direction, I leapt over a fallen tree. The problem with my power is that I can't use it all that long. It takes intense concentration to slow time like I was right now, and while I can slow my perception of it to react faster with less effort, doing that doesn't give me the speed to dodge.
As time sped up I heard a cry of pain from behind the tree, it seemed the daggers worked, now I just needed to figure out how to end this. I only had the cleaver sword, knife, and arming sword left, which meant I'd have to get close. Figuring out what to do, I could hear the flames getting closer.
"Come out Eleven, you can't hide forever you know…, If you don't I might just have to burn everything until I find you." She did not sound happy, and I didn't want to take a chance with that fire of hers. Finalizing my plan, I sighed and prayed that it would be dumb enough to work.
Unsheathing my knife, I lobbed it into the air after speeding myself up, pulling out my cleaving sword. I got behind a large boulder next to the fallen tree. As the knife fell I readied myself, raising the blade over my right shoulder.
With a *THUNK* my knife hit a piece of wood on the other side of Nine. She spun, already raising both hands to release a torrent of scorching fire, both light orbs lighting up to release blasts of energy as well.
As she did so I leapt, time slowed to a crawl, my head felt like it was splitting open, unfortunately I didn't make it all the way before I had to let go. Nine spun back around to face me, swearing as she did, a blast of fire and plasma hitting me right as my sword sliced through her shoulder and chest.
Then the exhaustion hit, and everything went dark.
I woke up later in my ship's quarters, all of my clothing still on, and Nine was passed out on a chair in the corner, splayed out on it like a ragdoll. A tie then, damn, I was curious as to why she fought like that earlier, typically Nine fought by controlling the battlefield as much as possible, magical and normal landmines, curses, a heavy amount of elemental firepower, only then would she get closer to hit you herself. Which meant she was playing around yesterday, I sighed, might as well check that data packet on M-198 that Fate sent us, from what I could tell we were already on our way there. Sitting down in the pilot seat, I accessed the information on M-198.
Well, this was going to be an interesting few months.
Author's Note
So, this probably doesn't seem like the typical format for MGQ stories. I swear it's always SIs, not that I have anything against those of course. This story is a bit different. Though if you were expecting us to be with Luka then you'd be mistaken, mostly. This is set during his journey, but we'll be following these two as they hunt down this mysterious target, more on that next chapter.
Truthfully, this story could be written in MANY different fandoms, I simply happen to enjoy the setting that MGQ provides. The overarching multiverse will be more thoroughly explained and explored during the story, but it is something I've had in mind for years now. This is also "technically" a crossover, due to the multiverse aspect of it, this will rarely be relevant however.
I value any and all criticism that can be given, this is the first story I've ever written. If you come here just to flame the story though, I will laugh.